Give Us Freedom: The Women who Revolutionised the Modern World

'They will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death'

So said,in 1913 ,the brilliant orator and suffragette ,Emmeline Pankhurst, just one of the inspiring women who won the vote for women.

She remains a heroine for those determined to go to any lengths to change our world and one of those inspirational souls who feature in Rosalind Miles' gallery of famous, infamous and little-know rebels.

We begin with the French Revolution when women took on the fraternite of man, then it's off to America to round up the rebels fighting side by side for freedom with their men, before heading back to Britain to witness the courage of the suffragettes. From Australia to Iceland, from India to China and from many other countries, we track women who - often at a very high cost to themselves - have stood up to age-old cruelties and injustices. Recording the important milestones in the long march of women towards equality through a colourful pageant of astonishing women, we chart the birth of modern womanhood. Women in sport, women in business, women in religion, women in politics and women in power - all female life is there.

We end in the present day thrilled with what women have done - and can and will do.


Give us Freedom is as brave and as brilliant as its heroines.
Formerly published as Rebel Women

Rosalind Miles is a graduate of Oxford University, has a doctorate from the Shakespeare Institute and is the author of 23 books of fiction and non-fiction.

Dr. Miles is the winner of the Network Award for outstanding achievement in the field of writing for women, and has been designated an Alien of Extraordinary Ability by the US Department of State.

She is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Honorary Fellow of the University of Kent, and a founder contributor of The Literary Review, Working Woman UK and Prospect Magazine.

Translated into almost 40 foreign languages The Women's History of the World was a top ten bestseller in the UK and the US (Michael Joseph, UK, 1988; Salem House, US, 1989). It was awarded the non-fiction prize for the Best Foreign Title at the Gothenburg Book Fair, voted Best Book in its field by the American Historical Association and listed among the top 10 best-ever women's titles by the London Book Fair.

She is the author of the international best-seller, I, Elizabeth, a historical novel of Queen Elizabeth I in her own words.

She lives in Kent with her husband.